Macbeth at Storyhouse, Chester

Something wicked this way comes…

For its first Storyhouse Originals production of 2026, the Chester theatre presents a bold new staging of Macbeth, directed and adapted by Jamie Sophia Fletcher. Performed on Storyhouse’s thrust stage, the audience surrounds the action on three sides, pulled into close quarters with one of Shakespeare’s most psychologically intense tragedies.

Fletcher’s approach is driven by a desire to strip away the intimidation that can cling to Shakespeare. “Like a lot of people, I grew up feeling that Shakespeare probably wasn’t for someone like me,” she says. Her Macbeth confronts that common perception head-on, reframing the play for contemporary audiences while keeping the original language intact. With its witches, murder, ghosts and prophecy, Macbeth is already a natural counter to the idea that Shakespeare belongs to stuffy academia. Fletcher leans into its immediacy, shaping the production through her experience as a northern, neurodivergent, queer trans woman.

At its core, Macbeth is a study in ambition, moral choice, and the psychological consequences of pursuing power. The first act of violence is not inevitable; it’s chosen. But once that line is crossed, each subsequent decision feels harder to resist and easier to justify. What begins as a single murder escalates into paranoia and further bloodshed. Witches it may have, but the tragedy lies less in supernatural destiny than in human agency – in the alarming ease with which wrongdoing is reframed as necessity. As spiralling ambition and moral trade-offs shape public life ever more visibly in our own world, these patterns feel uncomfortably familiar.

At the centre of it all is the relationship between Macbeth and his wife. Robin Morrissey takes on the title role, his stage credits including Animal Farm at Leeds Playhouse and Richard III at the Rose Theatre Kingston and Liverpool Playhouse. Opposite him, Yolande Ovide – returning to Storyhouse after standout performances at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre – plays Lady Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s most formidable and complex creations. They’re joined by an ensemble cast including Mika Onyx Johnson as Macduff and Nishad More as Banquo, alongside performers drawn from Storyhouse’s Young Company alumni and Youth Theatre, reflecting the venue’s commitment to nurturing new talent.

Central to Fletcher’s contemporary vision of Macbeth is a bold use of video, soundscapes and dramatic lighting, all of which build on the intensity of the thrust staging. Design, projection and sound combine to create a haunting, high-stakes world, while kinetic choreography and sharply staged violence heighten the production’s physical and emotional tension.

As an in-house production, Macbeth also reflects Storyhouse’s wider mission. The charity-run arts centre reinvests all profits into its community work, offering training pathways for young people in the city. Accessibility is also a key part of the theatre’s mission, and it’s embedded across the run: all performances are captioned, with a BSL interpreted performance, creative audio description in collaboration with Hear The Picture, and a touch tour available.

At Storyhouse, Macbeth emerges not as a museum piece but as living drama – a story about power seized, conscience eroded and humanity sacrificed in the pursuit of success. In a world where ugly ambition is so often rewarded and wrongdoing so easily reframed as necessity, Shakespeare’s tragedy feels ever more present. On the thrust stage, with fate and power pressing in from every side, ‘something wicked’ will feel dangerously close.